Do you remember calling for your friends to come out to play? What did you do??

I remember a couple moved into a flat close by and they had a baby. I knocked on their door one day and asked if I could take the baby out for a walk in its pram! Not a problem and I was usually given sweets or whatever for doing it. Imagine the furore nowadays! I was around 9 I would think.

I frequently played with young children I had never clapped eyes on before. It gave their mothers time to themselves even although most had never seen me before. Times have changed.

A magical childhood, we had a not very deep strip of woodland parallel to the back gardens on our side of the cul-de-sac so used to disappear most of the day. Mum and Dad had a special tune they whistled to get us in, I used the same on my children. Dad used to travel abroad and bring back different marbles, great for swaps and those old metal roller skates, many a grazed knee. A ‘slide’ made of a plastic sheet on the grass with a hose on it in summer and a treat if the corona van came round, take the empties, or the ice cream van. I was always called a tomboy as I lived outside. Fortunately my children had a taste of this as we have woodland near, the GC’s less so.

I think most of us had an unrecognisable childhood by today's standards, wall to wall freedom to roam, as long as you came home sometime. Benign neglect from parents was pretty standard.

I grew up in Surrey, there was a stream leading into a pond just beyond the fence at the bottom of our garden, I was under that fence and playing around it aged about 5. I can't imagine letting my children do that I'd take the view they could fall in and drown, always fearful of mishaps me. My brother would give me lifts on the handlebars of his bike, I didn't get a bike till I was about 10, he got his much younger than that, although I paid the price for riding on his when I came flying off the handlebars and chipped a tooth. Mostly we went to school on our own with another girl who lived close by, school was a good twenty minute walk. I also remember going to and from Brownies at my local church hall on my own from aged 7. Saturday morning cinema was laid on for children which took us out of the house most of the morning. I remember getting 2/6 pocket money on Saturday. We also spent hours at the local swimming pool during the school holidays. As well as roller skating, not the sophisticated in line blades my children had, but the convoluted type that you tied on and could be expanded as feet grew. I remember falling out of a tree in our garden and breaking my arm, the right one of course! so had to write with my left hand while it was in plaster, I was berated for my awful handwriting at school every time I attempted to form spidery lettering with my left hand

In the summer my mum made tents for us in the garden by putting an old sheet on the washing line and pegging it down. My friend and I had a lot of fun playing in and out of the tent with her lovely Old English Sheepdog in tow who we occasionally dressed up in my school uniform complete with beret, he was so good about that

Sundays were all about going to mass in our house and if we were really unlucky Benediction in the afternoon other than that I think our parents gave us a lot of freedom, but that was standard helicopter parenting was years ahead in the dim and distant future.

We used to call for each other. So did my children, and so do my grandchildren. I don’t think life has changed for children as much as some imply. The biggest change is the increase in traffic, which can be limiting in some places, but it depends where you live. My grandchildren live in central London, but their road is a quiet backwater with no through traffic, and they do play in it..

What lovely memories! As others have said the main change has been the increase in traffic eg no one had a car in our street (or anywhere due to wartime fuel rationing.) and we used it as a roller skating rink.
I grew up on the NE coast and like you sodapop we spent most days at the beach. Although the beach was closed off during the war because of the risk of invasion. As someone else said, it was the almost complete lack of adult supersion that made us so adventurous. We had a "Dare" club.
One strange game we played was secretly tracking 'hockeys' - poor harmless old men who we thought might be spies.
No idea why we called them hockeys.
Came home every evening looking very scruffy.
I tried to give my own children the chance to be adventurous.

We used to make camps, climb trees, catch tadpoles, and lizards, and adders sometimes!

We put on shows, and made "dinners" out of flowers and leaves, picked blackberries and scrumped apples. (Well, we never did scrumping in case mum found out!)

We used to collect sticklebacks in jam jars. One of the older boys - he must have been about 18 told us that they cooked them by putting them on a pin and holding them in a candle flame. We couldn't wait to try it but were really put out when parents said no!

One of our friends (when we were aged about 6) had a row with her mother, so we decided to hide her and take her food, until she was grown up and then we would surprise her family when she turned up. She hid in a den we had made, while we went home for dinner. We brought her half a tomato and an apple, which she didn't like, so she went home. No one had missed her as it was still early afternoon.

Lovely story GrandmaSue .

We used to go to the outdoor swimming pool and stay all day. It must have been freezing cold. We climbed trees and explored building sites and jumped off shed roofs. We built bonfires and struck matches. Our mums didn’t expect to see us all day. We used to take strangers babies in prams for walks.

We knew all the odd people in the neighbourhood and gave them a wide berth though we didn’t know why we should.

I lived in London and remember all the games mentioned above plus two balls (up the wall) dabs, and if I got roped in by my brother, cowboys and Indians - I always volunteered to be the horse! I also had an autograph book - anyone else have one of those?

I am from the midlands and we used to call a slice of bread (from an uncut loaf) buttered with jam or sometimes cocoa and sugar spread on top A PIECE never a sandwich. In the same way we had different names for various types of bread roll.

French skipping and climbing trees! Making telephones with tin cans and string.

They call it a piece in Scotland, too.
At least in the part I used to visit.

Our street and the one behind us gave us a gang of about twelve so someone was always able to play out when called for! Great times. Hopscotch chalked on the pavement, lethal roller skates, hula hoops, handstands against the wall, leaning backward to make a ‘crab’ and walk (gosh, weren’t we bendy?) jacks, skipping ropes. Once we met up with some older boys. I was in top juniors and was a bit scared playing ‘split the kipper’ with a penknife!
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On the bus on Saturdays (on our own, no mum’s) with swimsuits and towels to catch the 94 bus into Chorlton Baths. Such freedom. Can’t imagine young ones nowadays going ‘swimming’ without an adult?

So many children now are ultra-supervised, on their iPads. No one just seems to ‘play out’. It’s either organised club activities, birthday parties or play dates for the littlest.

I let my grandson out and about, and probably up to all sorts, but I think it's important to have free time. (For him, although I love it too)

I'm always expecting a knock on the door to say he's been misbehaving, or he's fallen off his bike though.

Scottish here and a sandwich was always called a piece. We moved from a tenement to a brand new council house when I was four and I was the lookout for the night Watchman while the bigger boys and girls played in the unfinished buildings. We went as a group to school from the age of five. No parents but there were older children there. We walked alone to brownies in the church hall too. It was a simpler life which I miss very much.

Laughterlines

We used to go to the outdoor swimming pool and stay all day. It must have been freezing cold. We climbed trees and explored building sites and jumped off shed roofs. We built bonfires and struck matches. Our mums didn’t expect to see us all day. We used to take strangers babies in prams for walks.

We knew all the odd people in the neighbourhood and gave them a wide berth though we didn’t know why we should.

I used to take peoples babies for a walk too! Can you imagine that these days.

Love this thread! Rope tied to lamp post and skipping with all the other kids. Two balls on the wall - saying Betty Grable is a star S T A R. Out all day with jam sandwiches. Collecting jam jars and taking them to jam factory for pennies.

We used to buy a packet of elastic bands Jin them all together and we played elastics moving our legs up and over singing rhymes! Had nit thought about this for years! Also two baller banging the balls of the coal house door drove my mum and dad mad!

A ball in a sock that you flung under your knee, and over your shoulders.

One of those hoops that fitted round one ankle, with a string and a ball attached.

One roller skate each, with your best friend.
You could skate with your arms round eachother and go really fast.

Fabulous thread We used to call for our friends by knocking on the door and shouting "Now"...followed by their name as in "Now Margaret" God knows where it came from. One of the things we loved doing was making a swing with a cushion and a washing line hanging from the cross bar of a gate post. Another memory is the craze for swapping beads - plastic poppits were practically worthless but if you had a big "ruby" or "sapphire" you could swap that for loads of little diamonds, all hoarded preciously in a special tin.

We used to go in a gang to the "rec" which had play equipment and wooded bits, and a stream - and a vicious alsation that used to appear and put me off dogs forever.

We used to spend summers at "Seaside Granny"'s house in a tiny fishing village in Devon. It had a small railway station and my brother and I, when about 8 or 9, would pack up our cozzies and a towel and a packed lunch and go on the train on our own to Exmouth where we would spend the day - swimming (yes - really!) in the pool and the sea; hanging off the edge of the pier with a piece of string and a fish hook; riding on the mini train, playing on the play park where you could ride trikes around "roads", and boating on the little boating lake. True freedom! Wonderful!

Happy days spent skipping, biking,exploring,you name it, didn’t come home until tea time,no one ever seemed to worry about me.